ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy
This article is part of the Research TopicDefending the Last Line: Combatting Carbapenem-Resistant PathogensView all 18 articles
Genetic and Phenotypic Characterization of the plasmid-encoded NDM-80 metallo-β-lactamase in Escherichia coli isolated from a paediatric patient
Provisionally accepted
- 1Children's Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- 2Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China
- 3Huashan Hospital Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) strains carrying blaNDM variants pose a significant threat to the health of infected patients worldwide. This study isolated a carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli (E.coli) strain carrying blaNDM-80 from a patient in an intensive care unit in China. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, whole-genome sequencing (WGS), plasmid transformation assay, cloning experiment, and steady-state kinetic determinations were performed to investigate antimicrobial susceptibility, the characteristics of the genetic environment, the mechanism of resistance gene transmission, resistance gene function, and antibiotic hydrolysis ability. The results indicated that E. coli carrying blaNDM-80 showed significant resistance to all β-lactam antibiotics except for aztreonam, aztreonam-avibactam, and cefiderocol. WGS analysis revealed that the strain belonged to sequence type (ST) 155 and the O4:H51 serotype. The blaNDM-80 was carried by an unconjugated plasmid, and its complete genetic structure was found to be IS5-blaNDM-80-ble-trpF-dsbD-IS26-nmuD-ISKox3. The blaNDM-80 had single amino acid substitutions such as V88L, D130N, and M154L compared to blaNDM-1, whereas it only had the D130N mutation compared to blaNDM-5. The blaNDM-80 and blaNDM-5 had similar antimicrobial resistance profiles. However, in the absence of the native promoter, the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of blaNDM-80 for imipenem, meropenem, cefepime, and cefiderocol were twice as high as those of blaNDM-1. Steady-state kinetic determinations revealed that NDM-80 likely had higher hydrolytic activity against imipenem, meropenem, cefepime, and cefiderocol than NDM-1. This study is the first to report on the emergence of the blaNDM-80 variant, shedding light on its functional mechanism. Our findings enrich the repertoire of NDM resistance genes and highlight the need for increased surveillance of pathogens harbouring blaNDM variants.
Keywords: blaNDM-80, Carbapenem-resistant, E. coli, Paediatric, ST155
Received: 19 Dec 2025; Accepted: 13 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhou, Meng, Fan, Yang, Ding, Guo, Hu, Lu and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gangfeng Yan
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